Of seeking and finding
by RocknRollagirl
Summary: After a night out, Dean wakes up to find the Impala gone. With the help of his brother and a somewhat dubious tracking spells he picks up the chase, but all is not what it seems… (Entry for the SPN Spring Fic Exchange)


**Hey everyone:) It´s been a while but I´m finally back with a new piece of writing:)**

 **This was done as part of the SPN Spring Fic Exchange an LJ and it´s a gift for the lovely just_ruth.**

 **Her prompts for me were: Baby is stolen, "You´re sure that´s translated right?" and "Officer, I can explain." I took some liberty with the interpretations, but I hope you´ll still find it enjoayble.**

 **Shoutout to my beta soncnica, who made this readable:) All remaining mistakes are mine.**

 **Disclaimer: Don´t own them. More´s the pity.**

 **And now, enjoy:)**

* * *

It´s warm on this beach, the sun shining on his face, the wind tussling his hair as he takes another deep breath in to enjoy the fresh and salty air.

This is perfect.

 _Wait, when is anything ever perfect?_

He tries to chase the annoying thought away, tries to refocus on the sun and the wind and the waves, but that´s the moment a yellow walrus on a motorbike rides past.

 _Mmh. Alright. I guess that´s slightly unusual. And how is there a beach here anyway? Aren´t we in Wyoming? And who the hell is shouting?_

"Sam!"

Sam, wake up!"

„Fuck, Sammy, come on, you gotta wake up!"

His brother´s panicked voice cuts through the last hazy remnants of Sam´s dream and he jerks awake.

Something heavy clatters to the floor and Sam has half a second to notice that he apparently fell asleep with one of Bobby´s spell books in his hand yesterday, before Dean commands his entire attention.

„Sam!"

He tilts his head upwards to where his big brother is currently staring down at him, hands in the air as if he was just getting ready to shake him awake if he had to. Dean´s still wearing the same clothes he wore to the bar last night, there´s a pillow crease on his cheek and a cloud of smoke, booze and panic surrounding him.

„Baby´s gone!"

„What?"

For a moment he wants to laugh out loud at the absurdity of this statement, the Impala, the car that´s been their only home, gone, but one look at his brother´s face sobers him up quickly. This is not something Dean would ever joke about. This is serious.

He climbs out of bed and hurries over to the window that´s overlooking the motel parking lot. It´s empty. The car is really, actually, for real gone.

All their weapons. All their fake ID´s.

He´s starting to share Dean´s panic.

"What are we going to do now?"

He nearly jumps out of his skin as Dean speaks again, directly into his right ear. The smell of cheap whiskey grows stronger.

"I´d say you start by brushing your teeth", he replies with more levity than he´s feeling. His brother gives him a shove and a half-hearted glare before they both turn back towards the window.

"Maybe we should call the police?" Sam asks, more because he feels like that´s what a normal person would say in this situation than because he believes that that´s actually an option for them.

Dean snorts derisively, obviously thinking the same thing.

"Are you sure you took the car back here?"

Dean nods vigorously. As Sam furrows his brow disapprovingly, he holds up his hands.

"Hey, don´t give me that look. I wasn´t that drunk, okay? And it was only three blocks."

"Mmmh."

"Maybe four. Anyway, somebody must´ve stolen her!"

Sam is so worried he doesn´t even bother to roll his eyes at his brother´s incorrect use of personal pronouns.

"Have you checked outside yet?"

At this, Dean has the decency to look sheepish. "Not exactly. See, I figured four eyes see more than two, right?"

Without waiting for an answer he turns around and marches to the door like a soldier walking into battle. Sam follows a little slower, grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair he´d tossed it over yesterday.

Outside it´s a beautiful morning. The sun is doing its best to prove that spring is finally here, the birds are singing their approval and it faintly smells of flowers, even though there´s not a single one in sight. Everything looks calm and peaceful, except for the enraged Dean Winchester that´s standing where his car´s supposed to be.

"Look, she was exactly here! You can even see where you abused her breaks yesterday." Dean pounts towards the wheel traces on the asphalt and shoots him a dirty look.

"Hardly my fault that kid decided to throw his football in my way! You´d rather I´d ran him over?"

"Don´t be ridiculous. I can only lose when I answer this question."

"Lose what exactly? Your sanity? I`m afraid that boat has long sailed."

"Well, good thing we´re looking for a car, then, isn´t it? Which, by the way, would be a lot easier if you were actually helping me!"

"Yeez, fine. See, I´m helping."

Sam spreads his arms and does a slow 360. "It´s not here."

But Dean had already stopped listening. Instead he´s crouched over the bushes at the edge of the parking lot, right in front of where the Impala should be standing.

Dude, I doubt they hid it in this excuse for a hedge."

"Of course not, but I thought I saw, hang on...Aha!" With a triumphant gesture Dean extracts a blue handkerchief from the twigs and holds it up with his fingertips. "Would you look at that!"

Sam steps closer and stares down at his brother´s finding skeptically. "It´s a piece of cloth. So?"

"Well, it´s a piece of cloth that wasn´t here when we came here yesterday, was it?" Dean asks slowly, as if he´s speaking to a child. "Which means, it belongs to the person who took the Impala!"

"Or to literally any other person that walked past here in the last twenty four hours." Sam crosses his arms in front of his chest.

"Wow, no need to be so excited! I haven´t seen you find any clues yet, Sherlock", Dean huffs, obviously offended by his brother´s lack of enthusiasm. Then he turns back towards the handkerchief. "Look, there´s a letter stitched into this: W." He holds it up and shows it to Sam. "W like Walter? Wendy? Wilbur? Will?"

He stares down at the letter as if the force of his angry gaze could make it give up all its secrets. "Well, whoever it is, they Will be dead when I´m done with them!"

"Okay, yeah, I get it. Fiery death and destruction for our car thief. I´m with you there, but how do you plan to find out who this thing belongs to?" Sam interjects, before his brother can do something rash, like accusing the first person that´s coming by of thievery.

Dean frowns, thinking, then his face lights up and he hurries past Sam, the handkerchief clutched tightly in his left hand.

"Dean? What´s going on?"

"I have an idea", is all he says as he practically sprints back towards their room, once more leaving Sam to follow. Back in the room he finds Dean bend over the spell-book that had fallen to the floor, frantically flipping the pages.

"There it is!"

He slaps his open palm down on a page and grins smugly as he holds the book out to Sam.

"What´s this?"

"A tracking spell! I´ve found it in here last month when I was looking for your laptop cord-"

"That you said you didn´t take-"

"Well, technically-"

"That I found later under the bed in Bobby´s spare room, behind your comic book collection-"

"You´re missing the point here, Sammy! This is a tracking spell that can find anything!"

"That you never actually tested." Sam squints down at the page. "And that´s written in the most complicated ancient Greek I´ve ever seen."

Dean rises an eyebrow in challenge. "What, you´re not up for it?"

"Pff, hand it over!"

* * *

"Are you sure that´s translated right?"

There's a bowl of fruit on a small motel room table in front of Dean and he peeks skeptically at it.

"If you want to try it, feel free", Sam snaps back, because it´s a perfect spring day outside and he has spent the last four hours sitting inside a sticky room wrestling with Greek verbs. And their car is still missing.

"Hey, no need to freak out. I´m just saying..."

Dean lets the sentence trail off and after taking a deep and calming breath, Sam has to admit his brother maybe kinda sorta has a point. This is the weirdest spell recipe he´s ever seen:

 _Hair of the dog_. The lady next door has one. It´s shedding everywhere. Pretty simple

 _One part of whatever it is you´re searching_. A piece of the handkerchief. Done.

 _Half a gallon of juice of a red fruit._ Ketchup should count here, right?

 _Three drops of blood from the person who lost what you´re seeking_. Done, even though Dean squealed like a total wuss. Don´t give me that look, man, you know you did.

 _Something that´s green._ An old sock.

 _Something that smells._ Doesn´t really say whether the smell has to be good or bad. Anyway, the sock should do.

 _Something that´s dearly beloved._

Sam looks up at Dean questioningly. "Honestly, I´ve tried to translate this three times, but that´s what it says. _Something that´s dearly beloved._ Beloved by who? In which way? Any ideas?"

"Mmh, maybe something the seeker loves? I mean, the spell needs my blood so that´d sort of make sense, right?"

Sam nods reluctantly, while his brother lets his eyes wander around the room in contemplation.

"Okay, how about this?" Dean turns towards his duffel bag and produces a bag of peanut butter M&M´s. "Man, I love this stuff."

"I don´t think that counts."

"But you don´t know it doesn´t, right?" He waits until Sam slowly shakes his head, then adds the candy into the bowl with a flourish. "So lets try it!"

Before Sam can protest, he grabs his lighter and drops it into the bowl with one smooth practiced movement. A bright, green flame erupts from it and the distinct smell of burned fabric slowly fills the room.

That´s it.

As the flame goes out, Dean is already on the way to the fridge to retrieve the ketchup bottle.

" If at first you don´t succeed..."

They´ve ripped the handkerchief into tiny pieces. The ketchup bottle is nearly empty. Dean is beginning to look slightly anemic. There is not a single green item left in the room save for Sam´s boxers, and he´s keeping them on, thank you very much.

They´ve tried it with a page from Dean´s porn collection. His favorite cassette. A piece of pie from the bakery down the street. Nothing worked.

At this point it´s a little hard to read the text in the spell book clearly because the entire room is filled with green smoke, even though they´ve opened the window four tries ago. A more rational Sam would´ve given this up by now. A more rational Sam would´ve been slightly concerned about who might see the smoke emanating

from their motel room. But this wasn´t about being rational, not anymore. This was about the Impala and his unchallenged abilities as a translator and he was not backing down now.

"Dean, I´m telling you, that´s what it says!"

"Well, it can´t be, because we´ve tried everything!" Dean´s former enthusiasm has long been replaced with a mixture of resignation and poorly hidden panic and he´s looking at Sam from blood-shot eyes on a too pale face, before he unceremoniously drops into a chair and cradles his head in his hands.

"Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah, just a lil´dizzy."

"Okay, that´s it." Sam slams the spell book shut. "We´ll have to find another way, because we´re not trying this again."

He fills a glass of water for his brother and carries it over to the table. "Here, drink this."

Dean raises his head and looks at the offered glass, then up at him with a quizzical expression on his face.

"What?"

"Nothing. It´s nothing, just..." He takes the glass and weights it in his hand thoughtfully. "If I drink this, will you let me try one more time?"

"What? Why?"

"Because I think I have an idea, dumbass. But you have to promise me not to look, alright?"

"Absolutely not."

"Come on." Dean tilts his head, his tone quickly crossing over from asking into whining.

"And let you set the house on fire? I don´t think so."

"Please!"

"No, Dean, don´t even try that, you know it doesn´t work on me. No, I´m not even looking at you.

"Sammy..."

"Arghh, okay. Fine."

He throws his hands in the air in defeat, while Dean´s face lights up with glee. He empties the water glass in two giant gulps and makes his way over to the table still swaying slightly, quickly setting up all the main ingredients they need. The ketchup bottle makes a pitiful noise as he squeezes the very last drop out of it and he

manages to procure a green candy wrapper out of the depth of his pockets.

"You´re not looking, right?"

"No, not looking, Dean" Sam turned around as he heaved an agitated sigh. "See? Just please, don´t make me regret this."

"Oh, I´m sure the only person who will regret this is the fucker who stole my car."

There is absolute conviction in his voice that makes Sam more than curious about what secret special ingredient his brother had added to the mixture that makes him so certain it´ll work this time. Before he can ask, however, the now familiar sound of a roaring flame is to be heard. Then Dean gasps.

"Oh shit, it worked!"

Sam whirls around and really, above the flame floats the image of the woman who worked the reception when they checked in yesterday, carrying the blue handkerchief in her front pocket, before slowly flickering out.

"Well, I´ll be damned-"

Whatever Dean wanted to say gets interrupted by the sound of their motel room door flying open and crashing into the wall.

"What the hell is going on here?!"

In the door stands the dog lady from next door and in front of her, two police officers who look like they´ve been called away from their well-deserved lunch break.

"I told you, this has been going on all morning! I thought they would burn the whole motel down, officer."

The brothers share a look, well aware that they were covered in ketchup spots and might have forgotten to clean up the drops of Dean´s blood that landed on the table. Then Sam puts on his best innocent smile and turns towards the door.

"Officers, we can explain..."

* * *

"Fuck, I really thought they´d never let us go." Dean pushes the door of the police station open and storms outside as if he couldn´t stand to be within the building for one more second.

"If you would´ve let me handle the explanation from the beginning-"

"Oh yeah, because they were obviously buying the whole `My brother´s a little mentally challenged and only wanted to try a chemistry experiment he´s seen on TV`-angle."

"Well, I still think they would´ve if you didn´t try to convince them we´re scientists working on a secret government operation half-way through."

They glare at each other for about five seconds before Dean cracks a grin. "But you gotta admit, Officer Riley´s face was hilarious."

Sam snorts. "Yeah, okay, true. And remember how the deputy looked when you told them you´ve found the secret to turn frogs into princes?"

Now Dean´s laughing. "Oh man, that was the most fun I´ve had in a while."

The sun is slowly making its way towards the horizon as they walk down the street in amiable silence for a few steps until Dean suddenly stops short. "Fuck, Sam, the car! I totally forgot about the car!"

The smile falls from Sam´s face. "Shit, you´re right."

"Oh, that receptionist is going down!"

Dean´s about to set off running when his phone rings. He impatiently unlocks the screen and growls. "Hello?"

Sam can´t hear the person that´s speaking on the other side, but whatever she´s saying makes Dean´s face change from annoyed to confused to embarrassed within seconds.

"Uhm, Anne - Ashley, sorry, of course, Ashley. Would you mind reminding me what you´re talking about?" There´s a swell of excited words from the other side and Sam is pretty sure he´s heard the word `car`in there several times. Dean´s cheeks are turning redder every time until his face matches his shirt.

"Oh yeah, sure, I remember now. Uhm- and they enjoyed it? Yeah, great. That´s great. And where is it, you know, right now?"

Sam has a sinking feeling he knows where this is going. Dean shoots a careful look in his direction before he hastily focuses back on the phone call. "At the motel? With the keys under the door mat? Like I said, yes of course, that´s what I said. Uhm, yeah, maybe later. Anyway, thanks An- uhm Ashley."

He ends the call and puts the phone back in his pocket all the while avoiding Sam´s eyes.

"So, let me guess. You didn´t bring the Impala back to the motel yesterday night?" Sam slowly crosses his arms in front of his chest.

"Yes, I did!", Dean replies defensively. "The car and maybe also the cute bartender who totally had a thing for muscle cars and their owners."

Sam shakes his head in disbelief. "And then what? You just... gave it to her?"

"No, not like that. It´s just, she was really nice and she told me her sister´s celebrating a huge birthday or maybe it was a wedding or something and that she would totally freak out if she could use a car like the Impala for that." Dean scratches his head in embarrassment. "And she was pretty convincing, if you know what I

mean. So I might have said yes." The last part of the sentence is so soft that Sam barely hears it.

"It´s okay. You can yell now." Dean lets his head hang as if he´s waiting for a shooting squad and Sam can´t help the spark of fondness that sneaks into his chest beneath all the irritation. Because, if you look at it from another angle, it was also kind of sweet of him to lend the car. Even though that´s something sober-Dean

never would´ve done in a thousand years, even though it brought them a morning bent over a spell book and an afternoon in a holding cell.

He sighs again, then cuffs Dean slightly on the head. "I´m not yelling, even though you deserve it, jerk."

Dean rubs his head, mumbling a "hands off the merchandise, bitch" that sounds suspiciously like a "thanks, bro." Then, obviously happy to direct the attention away from himself, he asks. "But what about the handkerchief and the receptionist?"

Sam shrugs. "What about them? I guess it really belongs to her. She probably just lost it in the bushes."

Dean nods contemplatively. "Yeah, probably. But at least we know the spell works."

"Yeah, guess it does." Sam turns to his brother. "By the way, what did you put in there the last time?"

Dean stares straight at the road in front of them, where the motel and, thank God, the Impala, slowly come into view. "The picture in my wallet. Don´t worry, I´ve got another copy somewhere in the trunk."

"The picture in your - the one were we both sit on Bobby´s po - "

 _Something that´s dearly beloved. Oh._

Sam feels something in his chest loosen and warm and it must´ve shown on his face, because Dean immediately plunks his elbow in his ribs. "Don´t let it go to your head, sasquatch. You´re still on laundry-duty this week."

"What laundry? We hardly have three pairs of socks left between us."

They´re both laughing now. After a beat, Sam says:

"Hey Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Now that we know the spells works, you think we could use it to find some of your lost brain cells?"

"Oh shut up, Sam."


End file.
